Walt's Corner

Man. Has it been that long since I’ve posted here? Guess so. Couple of months anyways eh?
Oh well… Been having too much fun I guess. Between then and now I’ve come up with some things to post, but after I wrote them I failed to find the motivation or time to actually post the article in between all my leisurely activities. But more on them later. Perhaps next month. Then all will be clear.

What about the new iPhone? Faster. Longer battery (usage, not length). Less money. Wait, lets go back to that faster part. 3G it seems. Bad part of it is, there is no 3G in my area so getting it would not net me any faster internet. Then there’s the whole black plastic piece. I don’t like it. I figure I could get used to it if I had; but I don’t have to just yet. I’m still perfectly happy using my original iPhone. It will get all the software improvements of the new iPhone once Apple releases the updated software. I really love the look of mine though – the matte aluminum back. You see that and you now immediately (if you are in the know) that it is an iPhone. You see something all black, it could be one of a hundred different phones out there.

For this geek, I’ll be thrilled when my version 2 iPhone software gets delivered to me. More so than getting one of the new iPhones themselves. I’m also looking forward to the 3rd party apps that will be available soon.

I was disappointed at the features that seem like they should be delivered with version 2 but will not be as far as I can tell: copy/paste and MMS to list the main culprits. Don’t get me wrong, I still wouldn’t go back to my Palms or Windows immobile devices, but I would like to see those two features on my iPhone. Are you listening Steve?

And I will fill you in eventually on what has transpired these last couple months. I promise.

Note: original document had images. They have been removed.

Not so much of a review as it is a record of what kept me from fully trying it. Let’s go back to the beginning.

I heard of this new email client, and I love email clients. Especially great ones. With the plethora of workable clients available, one has to be superb in order for me to buy it. But that’s exactly what I did early on. My first paid for client was Eudora 3.x for the Mac. Then MS came out with their new Outlook Express 5 for Mac. I loved it. Loved it so much that I used both it and my Eudora (since I paid for it). I would use one for a while, then switch to the other because I missed it.

Outlook Express eventually evolved into what is now Entourage. And yes, I paid for it. Much more than I paid for Eudora. And that was the first one for the classic Mac OS. Then I upgraded it to the v.X, 2003, and finally, 2008. But I don’t use it. Why? I love the default email client that comes free with my Mac – Mail.

After I read about this Outspring Mail, I went to the website to see what it looked like. Nothing. No screenshots. I saw they had documentation for all their programs. So I went to their docs library to check it out. Everything but Outspring Mail. So I fired off an email to their info address telling them that I had attempted to see what it looked like but they had no screenshots to tempt me into downloading their trial. I have to give them kudos on their response. I had an email that day telling me that they had posted a screenshot. So I went back to look at it. It still didn’t look very appealing, but what the heck. I downloaded it last night (yes, the updated version).

First let’s talk about the aesthetics. Yes, it has that Leopard look, but the buttons are lines and scribbles. Check it out.

Those have to go. Give me something that has a more real, or at least virtually real look. Lines don’t cut it. That’s so etch-a-sketch. Maybe if I shake my screen they’ll go away? Compare that to Mail’s:

Second, let’s talk about importing my other email into it. Didn’t happen. I’ve got 4 main email accounts:
.Mac (IMAP) – my main email account
BasilWeb (IMAP) – my own domain mail server
AKO (IMAP) – my work email
Roadrunner (POP3) – my ISP meager email offering that I don’t use except to receive two emails per month; telling my bill is ready, and giving me my confirmation that I paid my monthly bill.

You can see them here, in my favorite email client, Mail, when I expand my “Inbox.”

See them all? Outspring Mail offered to import 3 of them, along with my local folders. Outspring Mail totally ignored my .Mac account. But I went ahead and allowed it to import the 3 accounts and the local folders. The result was pretty ugly. I had one email in my .Mac inbox, and of course it wasn’t there because Outspring Mail didn’t import that one. So you can see in the following screenshot that Outspring Mail’s inbox is empty.

I thought, no problem, I’ll just go ahead and check out the rest of my IMAP folders. I knew from the start that since it didn’t offer to import my .Mac account, I shouldn’t expect to see that email in there. But there were none. So I checked the rest of my accounts – nothing. I assumed this could be fixed by setting my IMAP path prefix to “INBOX” like I do in Mail and on my iPhone, but when I went searching for that preference, it wasn’t anywhere to be found. A quick search through it’s help menu brought up some troubleshooting tips – for Apple’s Mail.

So there you go. Color me unimpressed, which I’m told is a darker shade of black. Is there any other? And all this failure for the low price of around $95. Ouch. I guess it may find a small following. I suppose it has a nice feature that I would like to have: the ability to automatically file my mail for me. I’m a very organized person. Email from family gets filed into Saved > Family. Email from the wife gets filed into Saved > Family > Wife. The two emails a month I get from Time Warner for my bill get filed under Saved > Finances > Time Warner. See where I’m going with this? That feature would definitely be handy. But there are some other basic features that I don’t see that I really need. LIke when my wife sends me a class update or something from her Outlook. She invites me. My Apple Mail passes it to my iCal, and it puts it in my schedule for me and notifies her of my acceptance of her invite. I’m not giving that feature of for some automatic filing. And that etch-a-sketch look. I could never get over that. Talk about two steps backward. Then there’s the whole $95 entrance fee. Get with the times Outspring! Not the going price for even an advanced email client. Even Microsoft has the decency to throw in a couple more applications with Entourage for that price. Maybe you’ve heard of them? Word. Excel. Student/Teacher version runs around $100 and anyone can get that price in a brick and mortar store without being a student. I take my email seriously but Outspring Mail doesn’t seem to be for me.

I expect them to add features and lower the price if they want to remain competitive.

So “everyone” around the world turned their lights off for an hour last night to commemorate our realization that Global Warming is a reality and that we can possibly do something to avoid it. Carol’s watching How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, and they are playing this game on it right now. I’m going to have to call it right now:

Bullshit.

Not to the whole Global Warming theory. I wholeheartedly agree with that. It’s coming, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. The world as we know seems to have gone through several Global Warming periods so far and nothing we little ants do now will stop this from happening. I’m sorry, but turning lights off for an hour or a year won’t stop this upcoming Global Warming that may or may not happen. In fact, in anticipation of others around me cutting their lights for Earth Day, I went ahead and turned all mine on for an hour. Or was it 3 hours? I forget. To make it even better, I left the house and we went to some restaurant to eat. I also noticed they had all their lights on.

And Google cares about it too. Check out their little page about it here. Then take a trip over here and read how they are really saving us energy. Money quote: “Every time someone clicks the ”Google Search“ button, thousands of servers, like those Google will amass inside these three projected 68,680-square-foot storage buildings, reel into action…trolls through petabytes of data, using tens of billions of CPU cycles. Velcroed together, stacked in racks, and lined up in back-to-back rows, the servers require a half-watt in cooling for every watt they use in processing, and Google leads the field in squeezing more servers into less space… [by 2011] the Dalles plant can be expected to demand about 103 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 82,000 homes, or a city the size of Tacoma, Washington.”

Oh yeah Google. Making your screen black for an hour will go a long ways towards reducing our impending doom. Or reducing the power you already consume.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TED9_2NMcbs

The best part of the Wii are the “freebie” games that come with it. That also goes for the Zapper that you can buy as an accessory. The game that comes with the zapper is my current favorite, Links Crossbow Training. That gives me 27 levels of targets to shoot at. My favorite of those would be 5-3, Shoot Out. Check out the above video of it. This guy is good. My highest score is 36,xxx and all of the 25 dudes dead.

Every year, from sometime in February until sometime in April, the winds come a-blowin’. My first wind season here would have been in 1997. I remember it well. Birds were laying low on the ground. Big birds too – not your swallows or sweep but big honkin’ pigeons. Big enough to pass for a delectable cornish hen for two. I saw them hit the ground and stay. It was too dangerous for them to be flying around in that wind. They know that if they start to fly, there will be no telling where they will end up at. And they know this. I walked up to them. Seeing how long they would sit there. They sat there until I was about a foot from them. Then I got this really nasty look from it and it took to flight. That was the last I saw him. The wind grabbed him and flung him into the air and over the neighbors house. That bird was gone.

Then the wind picked up my full size grill. Literally, picked it up in the air and dropped it off in the neighbor’s yard. I had just installed a full propane tank on it too. It was pretty heavy. Ever since then, I always had a chain or wire around the grill, the tank, and something that wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, a couple minutes after the grill was gone, a big tire came rolling into our yard from the highway.

That was my first year. I pretty used to it now. You learn to lean into it. Much like a weed leaning with the wind doesn’t get pulled out by its roots. It was pretty strong this weekend. Above, you can see the winds were back. They were going pretty rough on Friday afternoon. So bad, in fact, that we were talking about another year past where people who had their windows cracked only on one side during one of these storms had their windows blown out from the pressure/vacuum of the storm. No soon had we mentioned it when someone came into the building talking about windows shattering in the parking lot.